task0778
Diamond Member
As I already knew, the Justice dept files lots of lawsuits against big biz, many of which are settled out of court that result in a large financial payment. What I did not know until now is that under the Obama Administration the DOJ took money from those settlements that should have gone to the victims of whatever misdeeds were done and instead gave it to advocacy groups that the administration favored who were not in the least damaged by those same misdeeds. IOW, they were not harmed but got a big payout anyway.
The House Judiciary Committee spotlighted this a year ago, in the report supporting the “Stop Settlement Slush Funds Act of 2016” (which was passed by the House but died in the Senate). And Senator Grassley put the point bluntly, in an October 2016 letter to then-Attorney General Lynch:
The Department handpicked the third-party organizations—none of which have suffered harm—that could receive payments. The Department made its selections through a non-public and unaccountable process that is void of any opportunity for oversight from Congress or transparency to the public. Moreover, the list of government-approved recipients includes organizations from which Congress cut funding in 2011, such as the National Council of La Raza, the National Urban League, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, and NeighborWorks America. The Department has apparently used its settlement agreements to funnel money to left-leaning, politically active organizations, and to effectively restore funding to organizations that Congress deliberately defunded.
In fact, as the House Judiciary Committee report showed, the Obama Justice Department even used settlement funds to support policy initiatives that Congress had defunded. As the committee urged in its report, those programs and recipients may or may not be in the public interest, “but that is entirely beside the point. Under our system of government, Congress gets to decide how money is spent, not DOJ.”
The good news is that this week Trump's Justice Dept put an end to that shit. Anybody want to tell me this practice would not have continued under Hillary Clinton?
The Justice Department Drains the Slush
The House Judiciary Committee spotlighted this a year ago, in the report supporting the “Stop Settlement Slush Funds Act of 2016” (which was passed by the House but died in the Senate). And Senator Grassley put the point bluntly, in an October 2016 letter to then-Attorney General Lynch:
The Department handpicked the third-party organizations—none of which have suffered harm—that could receive payments. The Department made its selections through a non-public and unaccountable process that is void of any opportunity for oversight from Congress or transparency to the public. Moreover, the list of government-approved recipients includes organizations from which Congress cut funding in 2011, such as the National Council of La Raza, the National Urban League, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, and NeighborWorks America. The Department has apparently used its settlement agreements to funnel money to left-leaning, politically active organizations, and to effectively restore funding to organizations that Congress deliberately defunded.
In fact, as the House Judiciary Committee report showed, the Obama Justice Department even used settlement funds to support policy initiatives that Congress had defunded. As the committee urged in its report, those programs and recipients may or may not be in the public interest, “but that is entirely beside the point. Under our system of government, Congress gets to decide how money is spent, not DOJ.”
The good news is that this week Trump's Justice Dept put an end to that shit. Anybody want to tell me this practice would not have continued under Hillary Clinton?
The Justice Department Drains the Slush
